reported by our Welsh-speaking correspondent Dim Parcio
Shwma! Mae’n dda gen i gwrdd â chi!
Each year the British Chess Championships visit themselves upon some outstanding gem of the British coastline such as Llandudno, Torquay, Eastbourne, Aberystwyth, etc. Next year is Hull.
This year it was Llandudno, an elegant and graceful resort – swmpus as we say in Wales – on the North Wales coast, in the lee of Pen-y-Gogarth (Great Orme’s Head to you saesnegs).
Just to lower the tone, Limewood was represented there by Lumpy Kustud whose main preoccupation seemed to be sampling a different cuisine each night – Greek, Indian, French, Chinese, Spanish, Thai, Italian and that most traditional of all Welsh dishes: pysgod a sglods. To his chagrin he didn’t get the chance to trot out the one Welsh expression he had memorised: bydd y ddynes hon yn talu am bopeth (Eng translation: This lady will pay for everything).
Now Lumpy Kustud is to the higher levels of chess like a flat bicycle tyre is to a cavalry charge. In short he is what we Welsh call a twmffat or, to put it more politely, a pen pidyn. Nevertheless he managed to find a category in the competition he just about qualified for and snuck in at the end of the line, hoping no-one would notice.
So what can we say about his performance? Er, not a lot.
Here is one highlight (there weren’t many):
Black (Lumpy) to move and win material:
And here is another. But In this one Lumpy (White) has just played Ne4 (from g5), which he thought was pretty clever, but the chess engines all label it as a blunder. What has the uffar gwrion (as we say in Wales) missed?
The pinnacle of his week was in the Rapidplay on the final Saturday. Time allowed: 10 minutes + 5 seconds per move. In the 1st round his opponent (grade more than double Lumpy’s) arrived 8 minutes late with only 2 minutes left on his clock while Lumpy still had the full 10. Somehow Lumpy held him off long enough for opponent to run out of time. Oh, delirious success!
Which meant that in Round 2 he was pitched against a seriously high-graded opponent: a Woman International Master. He tried out his one line of the local lingo: bydd y ddynes hon yn talu am bopeth (Eng translation: This lady will pay for everything). Sadly, she didn’t understand Welsh. She just took his pieces instead.
Hwyl fawr am nawr! Iechyd da!
Answers to puzzles:
1. Lumpy plays Nf6, pushing White’s queen away from protecting the bishop, thus winning the bishop.
2. Lumpy missed playing Nxf7 (giving double attack on Black’s rook) followed by Nh6+ forking king and queen.